Intellectual Property and the Prisoner’s Dilemma: A Game Theory Justification of Copyrights, Patents, and Trade Secrets

In this article, I will offer an argument for the protection of intellectual property based on individual self-interest and prudence. In large part, this argument will parallel considerations that arise in a prisoner’s dilemma game. In brief, allowing content to be unprotected in terms of free access leads to a sub-optimal outcome where creation and innovation are suppressed. Adopting the institutions of copyright, patent, and trade secret is one way to avoid these sub-optimal results

Fiber Optic Rosette Strain Gauge Development and Application on a Large-Scale Composite Structure

A detailed description of the construction, application, and measurement of 196 FO rosette strain gauges that measured multi-axis strain across the outside upper surface of the forward bulkhead component of a multibay composite fuselage test article is presented. A background of the FO strain gauge and the FO measurement system as utilized in this application is given and results for the higher load cases of the testing sequence are shown

Hypothalamic Vitamin D Improves Glucose Homeostasis and Reduces Weight

Despite clear associations between vitamin D deficiency and obesity and/or type 2 diabetes, a causal relationship is not established. Vitamin D receptors (VDRs) are found within multiple tissues, including the brain. Given the importance of the brain in controlling both glucose levels and body weight, we hypothesized that activation of central VDR links vitamin D to the regulation of glucose and energy homeostasis. Indeed, we found that small doses of active vitamin D, 1α,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25D3) (calcitriol), into the third ventricle of the brain improved glucose tolerance and markedly increased hepatic insulin sensitivity, an effect that is dependent upon VDR within the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus. In addition, chronic central administration of 1,25D3 dramatically decreased body weight by lowering food intake in obese rodents. Our data indicate that 1,25D3-mediated changes in food intake occur through action within the arcuate nucleus. We found that VDR colocalized with and activated key appetite-regulating neurons in the arcuate, namely proopiomelanocortin neurons. Together, these findings define a novel pathway for vitamin D regulation of metabolism with unique and divergent roles for central nervous system VDR signaling. Specifically, our data suggest that vitamin D regulates glucose homeostasis via the paraventricular nuclei and energy homeostasis via the arcuate nuclei

Moving Mirrors and Thermodynamic Paradoxes

Quantum fields responding to "moving mirrors" have been predicted to give rise to thermodynamic paradoxes. I show that the assumption in such work that the mirror can be treated as an external field is invalid: the exotic energy-transfer effects necessary to the paradoxes are well below the scales at which the model is credible. For a first-quantized point-particle mirror, it appears that exotic energy-transfers are lost in the quantum uncertainty in the mirror's state. An accurate accounting of these energies will require a model which recognizes the mirror's finite reflectivity, and almost certainly a model which allows for the excitation of internal mirror modes, that is, a second-quantized model.Comment: 7 pages, Revtex with Latex2

A Lockean Theory of Intellectual Property Revisited

The primary, and perhaps sole, function of government according to Locke was to secure and protect the lives, liberties, and property of individuals who consented, explicitly or tacitly, to a specific political union. The question that I will address in this Article, and one that I took up over fifteen years ago, is: should we consider intellectual works to be the proper subjects of Lockean property claims? My answer then and now is “yes,” with the acknowledgement that such a view may require substantial revisions to Anglo-American systems of intellectual property. I will argue that intellectual property rights are no different from rights to lives, liberties, and estates—that is, intellectual property rights should not be seen as state-created entities offered as an inducement to bring forth new knowledge. The upshot of viewing intellectual property rights as state-created monopolies, far too often controlled by the powerful and well-connected, is the seemingly pervasive opinion that systems of intellectual property represent the mafia family on a global scale. In my view, to be justified and to warrant worldwide coercion, systems of intellectual property should be grounded in a Lockean theory of property—a theory that acknowledges and protects the natural rights of authors and inventors. Part II of this Article will present the main outlines of a Lockean theory of intellectual property. Part III will take up several specific objections that have been leveled against my preferred view. Finally, Part IV will consider several general objections to intellectual property

Toward Informational Privacy Rights

In this paper I will offer several arguments in support of the view that individuals have moral claims to control personal information. Coupled with rights to control access to one\u27s body, capacities, and powers, or physical privacy rights, we will have taken important steps toward a general right to privacy. In Part I, a definition of privacy is offered along with an account of the value of privacy. Simply put, privacy - defined as control over access to locations and information - is necessary for human well-being. In Part II, an attempt to move beyond claims of value to claims of obligation is presented and defended. Policies that sanction the capturing, storing, and trading of personal information about others is something we each have reasons to avoid. In the final part, the tension between privacy and security is considered. It is argued that privacy rights may be set aside only if specific procedural conditions are followed

Gendered endings: Narratives of male and female suicides in the South African Lowveld

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11013-012-9258-y. Copyright @ Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012.Durkheim’s classical theory of suicide rates being a negative index of social solidarity downplays the salience of gendered concerns in suicide. But gendered inequalities have had a negative impact: worldwide significantly more men than women perpetrate fatal suicides. Drawing on narratives of 52 fatal suicides in Bushbuckridge, South Africa, this article suggests that Bourdieu’s concepts of ‘symbolic violence’ and ‘masculine domination’ provide a more appropriate framework for understanding this paradox. I show that the thwarting of investments in dominant masculine positions have been the major precursor to suicides by men. Men tended to take their own lives as a means of escape. By contrast, women perpetrated suicide to protest against the miserable consequences of being dominated by men. However, contra the assumption of Bourdieu’s concept of ‘habitus’, the narrators of suicide stories did reflect critically upon gender constructs

Lorentz violation, Gravity, Dissipation and Holography

We reconsider Lorentz Violation (LV) at the fundamental level. We show that Lorentz Violation is intimately connected with gravity and that LV couplings in QFT must always be fields in a gravitational sector. Diffeomorphism invariance must be intact and the LV couplings transform as tensors under coordinate/frame changes. Therefore searching for LV is one of the most sensitive ways of looking for new physics, either new interactions or modifications of known ones. Energy dissipation/Cerenkov radiation is shown to be a generic feature of LV in QFT. A general computation is done in strongly coupled theories with gravity duals. It is shown that in scale invariant regimes, the energy dissipation rate depends non-triviallly on two characteristic exponents, the Lifshitz exponent and the hyperscaling violation exponent.Comment: LateX, 51 pages, 9 figures. (v2) References and comments added. Misprints correcte